From my first impressions of the show, I thought I’d only watch a few more episodes at most. But here I am. I just finished the first arc and I’m excited to get to the next one! So excited in fact, that I accidentally watched the first episode—oops…

I really wanted to write about my thoughts on the show as they were forming, but I didn’t want to write episodic reviews since that would really slow down my pace. Plus, I’d have to write like 39 of them. So instead, I opted to divide the show into chunks. Thankfully, the show seems to be divided into distinct arcs. I’m gonna be following the arcs as they’re laid out on the show’s Wikipedia page.

I’m approaching this like I do with episodic reviews. I’m gonna be talking about the events of the episodes so there’s definitely gonna be spoilers. Though, I still plan on writing a full non-spoiler review of the show once I finish it.

As far as protagonists go, Utena is a pretty damned awesome one. Though, I am biased since I love characters that break gender norms. She dresses in a boy’s uniform, she wants to become a prince, she uses the first person pronoun “boku”, and she even has her own harem of devout schoolgirls. True to her dream of becoming a prince, she also never misses the chance to stand up, defend, and fight for the women in her life.

It actually surprised me how affected I got when I saw her give up and wear a girl’s uniform in episode 12. I never would have thought seeing a girl wear feminine clothes would make me so sad. Because of how much wearing masculine clothes is a part of her core character, seeing her give that up really hammered home how broken she felt after losing the duel with Touga. Giving up wearing a boy’s uniform represented her giving up her dream of becoming a prince. A dream she no longer felt she deserved after failing Anthy.

I think the end of this arc also confirms there being romance between Utena and Anthy. Utena seemed to have some kind of revelation that snapped her out of the funk she was feeling after her lost duel. And it seems to be highly insinuated that this revelation was regarding her feelings towards Anthy.

Way back in the first few episodes, Utena said that she was only interested in guys. So it would be really interesting if we do end up seeing her discover her sexuality.

The show also totally fooled me with the prince fake out. I really thought Utena was a princess and that it was the lavender-haired prince that consoled her as a child. I guess I really should have known the opening fairy-tale scene wasn’t as it seemed considering the different animation style. Has Kung Fu Panda taught me nothing?

I absolutely hate the fact that the “prince” turned out to be Touga though. But I guess I’m supposed to. I just really hate that man.

Speaking of Touga, all of the other duelists were really interesting too, I just wished we got to see more of them. Now that the Student Council arc is done, it’s possible they’re not gonna be around as much anymore.

I found Mickey really interesting. He has a really weird relationship with his sister. He can’t seem to let go of the romanticized and idealized version of her from his past. He’s even convinced himself that his sister was an even greater piano prodigy than he was. And because of how fractured their relationship had become, he basically tried to get Anthy to replace her.

I still can’t figure out what Mickey’s timer is for.

I wasn’t as crazy about Jury, though she was still a good character. I wished we had gotten a two-parter for her as well. And the whole “miracle” thing was bit weird. I do like the slight subversion of the love triangle trope. It’s such an interesting idea to have her friend think they were both in love with the same guy, when in reality, Jury was in love with her. That’s a romance I would watch.

And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually kinda like Nanami as a character now. I mean, she is horrible, but she’s also really fascinating. On the surface, her brother complex seems like your typical weird anime sibling relationship. But it’s actually something the show takes very seriously.

Nanami is straight up obsessed to the point that she wanted to cause serious harm to Utena during their duel. We even see in her flashback that she drowned a freaking cat because Touga was spending more time with it than with her. That’s a crimson red flag if I ever saw one.

Touga gets pussy.

What’s also interesting is that Touga pretty much manipulates her to be this way. He was even the one to push Nanami to want to duel Utena. Because of this, I can’t help but transfer my hatred of Nanami onto him, causing me to be a bit more sympathetic towards the girl.

I also really like the duels. Despite how similar they are, they’re never really boring or repetitive because of how character-driven they are. Sure, the duels aren’t gonna win any awards for their amazing action, but that isn’t really the focus—the characters are.

Because of this, I appreciate how short the duels are. There’s just no reason to stretch them out because they’re not supposed to be action spectacles. Each duel has a character-related reason to exist and serves the purpose to be the culmination of a certain character arc. We even find out in the first episode of the next arc that each duel had a theme—friendship, choice, reason, love, adoration, conviction, and self.

Utena’s first duel with Saionji was in defense of her friend Wakaba. In their second duel, she initially intended to lose but made the choice to not give Anthy up. Mickey’s duel is a bit trickier to figure out how it fits with the “reason” theme. Maybe his reason for dueling was flawed due to his romanticized memories of his sister? Jury’s duel was related to a previous heartbreak. Nanami’s duel was driven by her adoration for Touga. The first Touga duel was a test of Utena’s conviction, I guess? And the final duel was a result of some kind of self-discovery Utena had.

This show also has some very unique and striking visuals, which I’ve heard described as being quite avant garde. I criticized the obviously low-budget animation during my first impressions post, but honestly, they make the most of it.

The only thing I really didn’t like about this arc were the more comedic filler-y episodes. They felt really jarring. Their lighter tone and even their portrayal of the characters just didn’t match the rest of the show. Nanami’s brother complex is played for laughs and Saionji’s infatuation with Anthy is played more innocently and comically despite the fact that he regularly abuses her in other episodes.

Touga’s interactions with Utena and Anthy were also weird in that he interacted with them as if they were normal classmates. They just talked as if he was a part of their friend group. This is despite every other interaction they have in the show being really weird and full of tension.

These were all primarily seen in episodes 6 and 8. And it’s no surprise that these two episodes were actually written by the same person who didn’t seem to get the memo about the tone of this show. I mean, who thought it was a good idea to have Touga box with a kangaroo? Or that the show needed a body swap episode caused by some explosive curry? Apparently the writer of these two episodes did.

Episode 6 also had the weird relationship Nanami had with that elementary kid. I’m not sure what their exact age gap was though. It could very well just be a year or two. Still, it felt weird and I’m glad they undid that by the end of the episode.

Apart from that, my only other criticism is Anthy still being underdeveloped. Though, I have a suspicion her lack of development might be intentional. Episode 12 seemed to show her becoming more emotional, to her own surprise. She isn’t really a normal character so it’s hard to figure out what metric to judge her with. Honestly, she almost feels inhuman, like she’s an otherworldly being inhabiting a human body or something. Or as if her emotions had been locked away along with her free will.

I’m sure we’ll find out more about her which will explain why she acts the way she does.

Anthy also gets hit by people a surprisingly many number of times. If my count isn’t off, she gets hit at least once during 9 of the 12 episodes of this arc. Most of these were by Saionji. The other ones were either by Nanami or those mean girls.

I get that the writers want to hammer home how meek and weak Anthy is, but do we really need to have her get hit almost every episode?

Final Thoughts

Overall, this was an extremely solid opening arc. It took me a while to really get into the show, but now I into it and I’m invested. I sorely want to know more about the history of the duels and the Rose Bride. I also want to see Touga die in a fire, a fate I formerly wished upon Nanami.

Speaking of Nanami, I’m really curious to see where her character goes—as with all the other characters. I’m hoping I continue to find her fascinating and that she doesn’t revert back to her old annoying self. I mean, she still is kinda annoying, but she’s also compelling which balances it out.

I know this series has been praised for it’s portrayal and exploration of gender and sexuality, so that’s something I’m looking forward to seeing more.

Hopefully, the show’s lower budget doesn’t affect the animation too much in the later episodes, unlike it did with Evangelion. They seem to be reusing as many shots as they can. Hopefully, that’s enough to stretch out their budget for the entire show.